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Chinese Space Program (CNSA) & Ch. commercial launch and discussion


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I've never understood the secrecy that CNSA have towards their launches. This is either thumbing their nose at the Americans, or simple national pride, or genuine curiosity (in descending order of likely hood) and in all three cases, there is no reason to hide what you are doing. We know the design of the rockets and where they are launched, so this secrecy helps no one. 

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2 hours ago, MinimumSky5 said:

I've never understood the secrecy that CNSA have towards their launches. This is either thumbing their nose at the Americans, or simple national pride, or genuine curiosity (in descending order of likely hood) and in all three cases, there is no reason to hide what you are doing. We know the design of the rockets and where they are launched, so this secrecy helps no one. 

Modesty saves from sarcasm when something is overestimated but went wrong.

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Being a citizen of their country, I've never understood it too. I remember watching Shenzhou 10 launching live on television*, but I've never seen any other Chinese launch live. I'd understand if it was a classified payload, but BeiDou navigation satellites and Chang'e 4? I simply don't get it.

*(I was out eating in some Chinese restaurant somewhere, and I remember the news flashing the countdown clock for Shenzhou-10. We were about to leave, but I persuaded everyone to watch the launch until it gets to orbit. This was the first time I had ever watched any launch live.)

Edited by Ho Lam Kerman
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2 hours ago, MinimumSky5 said:

I've never understood the secrecy that CNSA have towards their launches. This is either thumbing their nose at the Americans, or simple national pride, or genuine curiosity (in descending order of likely hood) and in all three cases, there is no reason to hide what you are doing. We know the design of the rockets and where they are launched, so this secrecy helps no one. 

This. Is. CHINA!

Jokes aside, the russians said they found the crew of soyuz tm35 even if it landed miles away from the intended landing site, the crew is niwhere to be found. Damn.

Edited by Xd the great
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3 hours ago, MinimumSky5 said:

I've never understood the secrecy that CNSA have towards their launches. This is either thumbing their nose at the Americans, or simple national pride, or genuine curiosity (in descending order of likely hood) and in all three cases, there is no reason to hide what you are doing. We know the design of the rockets and where they are launched, so this secrecy helps no one. 

I think they're afraid of broadcasting a failure. Sure, broadcasting a success would be great, but these rockets might fail, and they don't want the publicity that comes with live video of a failure (see the ongoing discussion in the SpaceX thread as an example). Announcing quietly that "oh, it failed" is a much less captivating way to announce a failure, and if the launch is a success we often get a launch video later on.

They were actually starting to livestream just a bit more a few years ago, but then the second flight of the Long March 5 failed live on camera and they haven't done anything like it since.

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55 minutes ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

They were actually starting to livestream just a bit more a few years ago, but then the second flight of the Long March 5 failed live on camera and they haven't done anything like it since.

Aww, snap! I'd love to have seen a few livestreams, but I wasn't as into spaceflight as I am now!

I really look forward to them doing it again!

(Just a quick question... did they livestream on YouTube, or a different platform? I'm guessing they were livestreaming on a different platform as YouTube is banned in China.)

Edited by Ho Lam Kerman
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2 hours ago, Ho Lam Kerman said:

Aww, snap! I'd love to have seen a few livestreams, but I wasn't as into spaceflight as I am now!

I really look forward to them doing it again!

(Just a quick question... did they livestream on YouTube, or a different platform? I'm guessing they were livestreaming on a different platform as YouTube is banned in China.)

IDK, I wasn't watching them either. I've only heard this somewhere. It wasn't on every launch, either, just slightly more notable ones, I think.

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On 12/9/2018 at 12:33 AM, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

IDK, I wasn't watching them either. I've only heard this somewhere. It wasn't on every launch, either, just slightly more notable ones, I think.

Their military have had ? a youtube channel. It was on that.

I posted one of their livestreams here (LM-5 maiden launch) on the forum, I tracked through the various changes in the livestream address.

Hence I'm guessing they have their own version of YouTube and they'd have it there. Wouldn't surprise me if the reason we haven't seen it is because they only broadcast it internally.

Edited by YNM
fixed a few things.
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40 minutes ago, Ho Lam Kerman said:

The Chinese version of YouTube is called Youku.

Well if you have a good knowledge of mandarin, I suppose you'll be able to find it.

The channel it was hosted was named "REVOLUTIONARY FORCES" but now they've gone a bit discreet (by naming it with chinese characters and probably in mandarin which most people don't really know - not all chinese are han). They also have the launch of Tianzhou-1.

So if you are able to find their successor it'd be nice.

Another reason why I suspect they have livestreams still within their sites is the fact that most of the stuff posted about chinese launches are from those internal sites as well, so I can only presume they still have domestic fanbases; and these clips seems to be what you'd feature in a livestream as well.

Edited by YNM
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I'll have a look. I've never used Youku, and I'm pretty trash at Mandarin (English is practically my de facto first language). 

......

Hmmm. A quick search shows that they've got a few videos, a lot of them of the OneSpace Chongqing Liangjiang Star (which is a hecka long name for a small rocket in my opinion), and a few Long Marches, but no livestreams.

I'll try hunting for the successor in the coming days. If I think I've found them, I'll let you guys know.

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On 12/8/2018 at 6:51 PM, Ho Lam Kerman said:

... I remember the news flashing the countdown clock for Shenzhou-10. ...

Speaking of which :

An archive of Shenzou-11 launch.

 

 

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On 12/8/2018 at 12:34 PM, MinimumSky5 said:

I've never understood the secrecy that CNSA have towards their launches. This is either thumbing their nose at the Americans, or simple national pride, or genuine curiosity (in descending order of likely hood) and in all three cases, there is no reason to hide what you are doing. We know the design of the rockets and where they are launched, so this secrecy helps no one. 

Attempts to maintain long-breached opsec are part and parcel of that business. Combine this with sociaist states generally treating all info on a need-to-know basis, and you have a general cultural aversion to publicity.

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